Written in 1960. He Remembers Hearing Adolf Hitler Speak in January 1931 at Berlin University

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Written in 1960. He Remembers Hearing Adolf Hitler Speak in January 1931 at Berlin University

Albert Speer, writing in his book, ‘Inside the Third Reich’ written in 1960. He remembers hearing Adolf Hitler speak in January 1931 at Berlin University. Albert Speer went on to become the Nazi Minister for weapons. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after the war and released in 1966. Everything about him was reasonable and ordinary looking; he was no shrieking fanatic in a uniform. He spoke passionately; it was hypnotic and persuasive. We were carried on a wave of enthusiasm. It swept away our doubts. Here, it seemed was hope, new ideals, a new understanding. The peril of communism could be stopped. Victor Schiff, in an article written in 1950 where he explains Hitler's rise to power. Schiff was a German journalist and socialist who worked as the Paris correspondent for the American ‘Daily Herald’ newspaper in the 1930s. If there is one point on which we all agree, it must be surely that Hitler owes his rise and ultimate victory to the World Economic Crisis. Hitler appealed to the despair of the unemployed workers; the young people who had no future; to the middle-class businessman and craftsman heading for bankruptcy and to the farmers threatened with a fall in agricultural prices. Albert Speer, writing in his book, ‘Inside the Third Reich’ written in 1960. He remembers hearing Adolf Hitler speak in January 1931 at Berlin University. Albert Speer went on to become the Nazi Minister for weapons. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after the war and released in 1966. Everything about him was reasonable and ordinary looking; he was no shrieking fanatic in a uniform. He spoke passionately; it was hypnotic and persuasive. We were carried on a wave of enthusiasm. It swept away our doubts. Here, it seemed was hope, new ideals, a new understanding. The peril of communism could be stopped. Victor Schiff, in an article written in 1950 where he explains Hitler's rise to power. Schiff was a German journalist and socialist who worked as the Paris correspondent for the American ‘Daily Herald’ newspaper in the 1930s. If there is one point on which we all agree, it must be surely that Hitler owes his rise and ultimate victory to the World Economic Crisis. Hitler appealed to the despair of the unemployed workers; the young people who had no future; to the middle-class businessman and craftsman heading for bankruptcy and to the farmers threatened with a fall in agricultural prices. .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Speer: an Artist Or a Monster?
Constructing the Past Volume 7 Issue 1 Article 14 2006 Speer: An Artist or a Monster? Emily K. Ergang Illinois Wesleyan University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing Recommended Citation Ergang, Emily K. (2006) "Speer: An Artist or a Monster?," Constructing the Past: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 14. Available at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol7/iss1/14 This Article is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Commons @ IWU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this material in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This material has been accepted for inclusion by editorial board of the Undergraduate Economic Review and the Economics Department at Illinois Wesleyan University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ©Copyright is owned by the author of this document. Speer: An Artist or a Monster? Abstract This article discusses the life of Albert Speer, who was hired as an architect by Hitler. It describes him as being someone who worked for a career and ignored the political implications of who he was working for. This article is available in Constructing the Past: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol7/iss1/14 Constructing the Past Speer: An Artist or a Monster? Emily Kay Ergang The regime of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party produced a number of complex and controversial.
[Show full text]
Hitler's Germania: Propaganda Writ in Stone
Bard College Bard Digital Commons Senior Projects Spring 2017 Bard Undergraduate Senior Projects Spring 2017 Hitler's Germania: Propaganda Writ in Stone Aaron Mumford Boehlert Bard College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2017 Part of the Architectural History and Criticism Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Boehlert, Aaron Mumford, "Hitler's Germania: Propaganda Writ in Stone" (2017). Senior Projects Spring 2017. 136. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2017/136 This Open Access work is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been provided to you by Bard College's Stevenson Library with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this work in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hitler’s Germania: Propaganda Writ in Stone Senior Project submitted to the Division of Arts of Bard College By Aaron Boehlert Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 2017 A. Boehlert 2 Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the infinite patience, support, and guidance of my advisor, Olga Touloumi, truly a force to be reckoned with in the best possible way. We’ve had laughs, fights, and some of the most incredible moments of collaboration, and I can’t imagine having spent this year working with anyone else.
[Show full text]
Jürgen Habermas and the Third Reich Max Schiller Claremont Mckenna College
Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2012 Jürgen Habermas and the Third Reich Max Schiller Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Schiller, Max, "Jürgen Habermas and the Third Reich" (2012). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 358. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/358 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Introduction The formation and subsequent actions of the Nazi government left a devastating and indelible impact on Europe and the world. In the midst of general technological and social progress that has occurred in Europe since the Enlightenment, the Nazis represent one of the greatest social regressions that has occurred in the modern world. Despite the development of a generally more humanitarian and socially progressive conditions in the western world over the past several hundred years, the Nazis instigated one of the most diabolic and genocidal programs known to man. And they did so using modern technologies in an expression of what historian Jeffrey Herf calls “reactionary modernism.” The idea, according to Herf is that, “Before and after the Nazi seizure of power, an important current within conservative and subsequently Nazi ideology was a reconciliation between the antimodernist, romantic, and irrantionalist ideas present in German nationalism and the most obvious manifestation of means ...modern technology.” 1 Nazi crimes were so extreme and barbaric precisely because they incorporated modern technologies into a process that violated modern ethical standards. Nazi crimes in the context of contemporary notions of ethics are almost inconceivable.
[Show full text]
Modern History
MODERN HISTORY Albert Speer (1905 – 1981) Examine the degree to which Albert Speer was culpable in Hitler’s organization and implementation of crimes against humanity from 1937 to 1945. In the perspective of Israeli historian Omer Bartov1: “…our understanding of the Third Reich, revealing it as a consensual dictatorship whose popularity was rooted in…the profits of crimes against humanity on an unimaginable scale.” There is no doubt, based on the historical evidence, that Albert Speer2 (1905-1981) was intimately culpable, to some degree, in Nazi Germany’s appalling crimes against humanity from 1937 to 1945. At the Nuremberg Trials3 in 1945, Speer was convicted and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment - largely on the basis of evidence showing his participation as Reich Minister for Production and Armaments, in the use of deportation and forced labour. The Court found Speer innocent on Counts One and Two; ‘planning, initiating and waging war of aggression’ and ‘crimes against peace’ respectively, and guilty on the counts of ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. The charges which Speer faced at Nuremberg did not include reference to his earlier involvement, as Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945) (Chief) First Architect of the Third Reich, and responsibility for re-planning Berlin in the ‘Germania’ project, which resulted in the forced removal of Jewish citizens from their homes in the city for the new Reich capital. Speer’s level of involvement in enslavement, the persecution of the Jews and his level of knowledge of the Holocaust remain subjects of historical debate. The unanswered question, as to which Speer was given the benefit of the doubt at Nuremberg, is whether he had any knowledge of Hitler’s initiated crimes against humanity and the awful fate that awaited Jews who were deported and ‘resettled’.
[Show full text]
Marcus K. Billsonl/1 a Conversation with Albert Speer in the Summer Of
Marcus K. Billsonl/1 A Conversation with Albert Speer In the summer of 1942 a picture was taken of Albert Speer walking in stride with his Fuhrer through the pine-studded military headquarters at Vinnitsa in the Ukraine. In the picture Speer is wearing a simple uniform, unadorned except for the swastika armband. His knee boots have been so highly polished they reflect the sunlight. The summer cam paign against Russia had been going well, and Speer, as the recently ap pointed Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production, had flown far into occupied territory to report personally to Hitler on the state of the German war industrial effort. The report had been highly favorable. Production figures had begun to rise, and they would continue to in crease at an astounding rate. In the picture, Hitler is obviously pleased, but his look of ebullience contrasts sharply with the tension and anxiety on the face of his minister. Speer's arms are folded stiffly across his chest and his body is bent slightly forward to catch each of the FUhrer's words. This posture expresses the Minister's attentiveness, but it also betrays a mood of deep preoccupation. The look on his face is curiously ambivalent. Though steely, it conveys profound weariness and distrac tion. The picture hints that perhaps even then Speer suspected that Hitler's fervent hopes for colonizing the Ukraine were deluded dreams. As I drove to Speer's home in Heidelberg almost thirty-five years later, that picture kept returning to my mind. I wondered at the changes time and history had wrought on this man I was about to meet.
[Show full text]
Hermann Göring Und Albert Speer Bei Den Nürnberger Prozessen
Hermann Göring und Albert Speer bei den Nürnberger Prozessen. Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten ihrer Verteidigungsstrategien Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Magisters der Philosophie an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz vorgelegt von: Bernhard RAUTZ am Institut für Geschichte Begutachter: Univ.- Dozent Dr. Martin Moll GRAZ, Juli 2015 Danksagung: Zunächst möchte ich mich an dieser Stelle bei meinen Eltern Kurt und Martha, sowie meiner Schwester Katrin Rautz bedanken, die mich während der Anfertigung dieser Diplomarbeit unterstützt und motiviert haben. Ganz besonders gilt dieser Dank Herrn Dr. Martin Moll, der mich bei der Erstellung der Arbeit betreut hat. Vielen Dank für die Geduld und die Mühen. 2 Inhaltsverzeichnis 1. Einleitung .............................................................................................................. 4 2. Abstract Deutsch/Englisch ................................................................................... 5 3. Forschungsfrage und Methode ............................................................................ 6 4. Allgemeiner Teil .................................................................................................... 7 a. Albert Speer ....................................................................................................... 7 b. Hermann Göring ............................................................................................. 17 c. Der Nürnberger Prozess ................................................................................
[Show full text]
NUREMBERG) Judgment of 1 October 1946
INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL (NUREMBERG) Judgment of 1 October 1946 Page numbers in braces refer to IMT, judgment of 1 October 1946, in The Trial of German Major War Criminals. Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal sitting at Nuremberg, Germany , Part 22 (22nd August ,1946 to 1st October, 1946) 1 {iii} THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL IN SESSOIN AT NUREMBERG, GERMANY Before: THE RT. HON. SIR GEOFFREY LAWRENCE (member for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) President THE HON. SIR WILLIAM NORMAN BIRKETT (alternate member for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) MR. FRANCIS BIDDLE (member for the United States of America) JUDGE JOHN J. PARKER (alternate member for the United States of America) M. LE PROFESSEUR DONNEDIEU DE VABRES (member for the French Republic) M. LE CONSEILER FLACO (alternate member for the French Republic) MAJOR-GENERAL I. T. NIKITCHENKO (member for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) LT.-COLONEL A. F. VOLCHKOV (alternate member for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) {iv} THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, AND THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS Against: Hermann Wilhelm Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Robert Ley, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Walter Funk, Hjalmar Schacht, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Martin
[Show full text]
Was Armament Minister Albert Speer Really Responsible for the German
Was armament minister Albert Speer really responsible for the German “armament miracle” during World War II? New doubts arising from the annual audits of the German aircraft producers. Jonas Scherner University of Mannheim Jochen Streb University of Hohenheim Abstract Armament minister Albert Speer is usually credited with causing the upswing in German armament production after 1941. Exploring the annual audit reports of the Deutsche Revisions- und Treuhand AG for six different firms, we question this view by showing that in the German aircraft industry the crucial political changes already occurred before World War II. The government decided in 1938 that aircraft producers had to concentrate on a few different types, and in 1937 cost-plus contracts were replaced with fixed price contracts. What followed was not a sudden production miracle but a continuous development which was fuelled by learning-by-doing and by the ongoing growth of the capital endowment. Preliminary version. Please do not quote. Comments are welcome. 1 The German armament miracle In December 1941 the Russian army stopped the German Wehrmacht near Moscow. That along with the United States’ entry into World War II brought the National Socialists’ strategy to fight so-called Blitzkriege, which could be waged with a comparatively low number of soldiers and arms, to a sudden end.1 Now confronted with the prospect of a long-lasting war against the Unites States and Soviet Russia, the German military planners acknowledged that they had to increase their armament production considerably. This insight was frankly made public by the economic journal Deutscher Volkswirt (1942, p.
[Show full text]
Assessing the Role of Architecture As Propaganda in the Third Reich
Page | 107 Assessing the role of architecture as propaganda in the Third Reich CAROLYN WOODS MHIS321 Twentieth Century Europe ArChiteCture played a Fundamental role in the propaganda oF the Third ReiCh. The aim oF any kind oF propaganda is to promote an idea or an ideology and Hitler and his Nazi Party used arChiteCture to promote their own program and ideology with an unquestionable emphasis on nationalism. The Nazi Party had several aims with their arChiteCtural propaganda. Firstly they aimed to promote and Create a single Cohesive Community through the idea oF ‘VolksgemeinsChaft’. ArChiteCture was one way they Could simultaneously express the values oF the Nazi party while teaChing the German people the ideal way to live. There was also a symboliC aim with Nazi arChiteCture. Hitler’s desire to Create a thousand year ReiCh would need buildings worthy oF standing the test oF time and through vast overstated struCtures Hitler and his Party attempted to reClaim the lost power oF the Holy Roman Empire. Lastly there was an aim to quell any demonstration oF an ideology or principle whiCh did not Correspond to the Nazi agenda. Fervently anti-Communist and anti- expressionist, the Nazi Party were able to promote their own ideology while at the same time persuade against any that they did not believe in. The Common thread through these key aims is the intense FoCus on nationalism. With each oF these three major aims oF Nazi arChiteCture we will see strong nationalistiC undertones and will Clearly see that advanCement oF the German nation through nationalism underpinned all arChiteCtural aims oF the Nazi regime.
[Show full text]
Aus Den Gemeinden Von Burgenland: Revisiting the Question of Adolf Hitler’S Paternal Grandfather
1 Aus den Gemeinden von Burgenland: Revisiting the question of Adolf Hitler’s paternal grandfather Abstract Hans Frank was Adolf Hitler’s personal attorney. In Frank’s memoir, published seven years after his execution in 1946 at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Frank claimed to have uncovered evidence in 1930 that Hitler’s paternal grandfather was a Jewish man living in Graz, Austria, in the household where Hitler’s grandmother was employed. Contemporary historians have largely dismissed Frank’s claim, primarily on the grounds that there were purportedly no Jews living in Graz in 1836, when Hitler’s father Alois Schicklgruber was conceived. This consensus can be traced to a single historian, Nikolaus von Preradovich, who claimed that “not a single Jew” (kein einziger Jude) was living in Graz prior to 1856. No independent scholarship has confirmed Preradovich’s conjecture. In this paper, evidence is presented that there was in fact eine kleine, nun angesiedelte Gemeinde – “a small, now settled community” – of Jews living in Graz before 1850. The contemporary consensus regarding Hitler’s paternal grandfather does not have a strong evidentiary basis. Other evidence, deriving from earlier sources, suggests that the contemporary consensus may be incorrect. Avenues for further research which might help to clarify the question are suggested. Keywords: Adolf Hitler; Austrian history; Burgenland; Jewish history; Nazi Germany 2 Hans Frank Hans Frank was Adolf Hitler’s personal attorney beginning in 1928 (Schenk, 2008: 60 – 61). He was appointed governor-general of Poland after its occupation by the Germans in 1939 and continuing until German defeat in 1945.
[Show full text]
The Architecture of Evil Roger Forsgren
The Architecture of Evil Roger Forsgren For the commission to do a great building, I would have sold my soul like Faust. Now I had found my Mephistopheles. He seemed no less engaging than Goethe’s. –Albert Speer Someone designed the furnaces of the Nazi death camps. Someone mea- sured the size and weight of a human corpse to determine how many could be stacked and efficiently incinerated within a crematorium. Someone sketched out on a drafting table the decontamination showers, complete with the fake hot-water spigots used to lull and deceive doomed prison- ers. Someone, very well educated, designed the rooftop openings and considered their optimum placement for the cyanide pellets to be dropped among the naked, helpless men, women, and children below. This person was an engineer, an architect, or a technician. This person went home at night, perhaps laughed and played with his children, went to church on Sunday, and kissed his wife goodbye each morning. The technical professions occupy a unique place in modern society. Engineers and architects possess skills most others lack — skills that allow them to transform dreams of design into reality. Engineers can con- vert a dry, infertile valley into farmland by constructing a dam to provide irrigation; they have made man fly; and architects have constructed build- ings that reach thousands of feet into the sky. But these same technical gifts alone, in the absence of a sense of morality and a capacity for critical thought and judgment, can also make reality of nightmares. Ferdinand Porsche, the engineer who designed the Volkswagen — an automobile that revolutionized personal travel for the common man — also designed a terrifying battle tank that helped kill millions of Russians on the Eastern Front.
[Show full text]
The Future in Stone: Architecture As Expression of National Socialist Temporality by Alex Wilkinson Cruddas a Thesis Submitted T
The Future in Stone: Architecture as Expression of National Socialist Temporality By Alex Wilkinson Cruddas A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts In History Department of History Carleton University Ottawa, Canada © 2016 Alex Wilkinson Cruddas Abstract Working alongside Adolf Hitler, architect Albert Speer pioneered his theory of Ruinenwert, or “ruin value”, which was employed in the design of monumental architectural projects. These structures were designed to evoke imagery of the Nazi’s contemporary power and ideology and were created to function as lieux de mémoire (“places of memory”) for subsequent generations of Aryans, providing heroic ruins for a future audience imagined as both bearers of the regime’s cultural legacy and witness to its destruction. The regime itself was understood to possess the contradictory qualities of the eternal and terminal, and its architecture was to reflect this. Little attention has been given to contextualizing the architecture of temporality National Socialism within the regime’s greater culture of future-mindedness. This work seeks to establish connections between existing discussions of National Socialist architectural futurity and those that explore the regime’s fascination with its own future more broadly. ii Acknowledgments I would firstly like to thank the wonderful and dedicated History Department administrative staff, particularly Joan White, whose support and assistance over the past years was immeasurable. My sincere thanks go to you Joan. I would also like to thank my readers, Dr. Casteel and Dr. Elżanowski, for taking the time to read my work and for being a valued part of my thesis project.
[Show full text]